Sitting on the plank, Clouds chase the Sun,
Lets get full throttle, the Rainbow is near,
The rain must fall, the sky must swear,
Our sweat makes it colorful, our hug makes it turn,
Slowly the mystery unfolds, the magic begins!
Together we can, together we will!
Having worked in the mapping industry I have almost an emotional attachment when it comes to Navigators and mapping devices.
When I travel to an unknown place, navigator is the first thing I pack and always have solace that it will help me when I get lost in the new place.
But I must admit that though navigator gives you a solace when in unknown place, 70% of the time you use it in such situations, you actually end up taking more stress, as the navigator lands you in small bylane not fit for car, asks you to turn on a one-way road and very often you hit a dead-end.
Well over the years, I have learnt to use my TomTom with caution and almost instinctively deciding which instruction to follow and which not to follow, but still end up in embarrassing situation at times… ex.. i was with my family in the car at 3 AM in night on a cut to rampur (jim corbett) when navigator misguided me to a road completely empty and barren.. it was my gut which said something is wrong and i decided to do a u-turn…
I would not entirely blame the mapping company for that, as it is impossible for roads change so frequently in India – one ways, blockages etc. No wonder that navigation devices have not taken off in India. In India it is more apt to look the place in Google maps and use your judgement to navigate to that place… Exact turn-by-turn navigation is not possible!!
This is not say that navigators are completely useless. They are very helpful when you are navigating on main roads.. but the moment you try to go on the bylanes, navigators loose it.. so you need to depend on your gut for last mile..
For all Google map lovers, let me tell you that google maps have their own disadvantage in terms of no data availability many times and not very comfortable to use while driving.. apart from gps killing the battery completely..
I would like to end saying that navigator has definitely helped quite a few time when i was searching for a resort/hotel in hill stations like Kanatal, Mukteshwar and even Sangla… it was wonderful to see resorts being mapped and navigator also took me 600m close to the resorts… it also helped me in discovering new routes – I never knew the route from Gurgaon to Delhi via Chatarpur farms ( not via mehrauli road)..
Weave your experience, to script the beautiful future,
Let the strings play, In harmony with your past,
Simple and Astounding, Lovable and Adorable,
Memorable and pleasurable, Like a painting on the wall,
With Reflections of passions, and Impatience of Success,
But with a touch of candor, and softness of persistence,
When you know you have, the morning has arrived,
Strike the right chord, It is the Truth of Touch!
Snapdeal, the online marketplace to day launched Reglobe, the re-commerce site where it takes old laptops and phones from consumers and pay them cash based on the assessed value.
Although, it has been existence in US for a while with sites like Gazelle been in existence for last 6-7 years, it is for the first time a large e-commerce player has launched in India.
While today a user can sell his used goods on Ebay, ebay only acts as a facilitator/platform enabling consumer to sell the goods based on the market economics and Ebay takes a transaction fee in the transaction.
In the case of Gazelle or Reglobe, consumers need to ship the goods, they are assessed by the company and then paid in cash.
What do Reglobe of the world do with the used goods :-
1. Set up an ecommerce shop to sell the used goods to consumers:- Sell Snapdeal verified second hand electronic goods. Possible, but user would prefer to shop for used goods on ebay where the user is likely to get a better deal because of platform-> auction etc. In short, ebay has all incentive to make the marketplace transparent because they have no business risk in doing that… but on the other hand, snapdeal would want to maximize the profits from used goods
2.. Sell them back to consumers on sites like Ebay, Amazon: – Not sure how profitable it is to sell used goods on internet because of the lemon’s problem.
3. Sell the goods to third world countries / third world markets: This is interesting, because in third world markets, used goods will be valued more.
2. Sell it to scrap dealer / for recycling:- This is again very interesting, because the perceptible value of a scrap phone ( not in working condition) is much lower than the actual value in terms of recovery post recycling. For more information read this: Your Dead Iphone is a Gold Mine
The punch line is, there’s more gold in a pound of electronics than a pound of gold ore,
The Lean Season
Once Again it was a lean season,
And both were blaming each other for the treason.
The cloud were the Words and mountain was the Music,
Could it have rained without Music rising above the tempo to call for the words?
You were the one whose smile refreshed my parched surface,
You were the one under whose shelter I enjoyed the sun and the moon,
You were the one I dreamt of traversing my life with, said the mountain.
Recalled the cloud, You were the one in which I could see my shadow,
It were on you I poured all my joys and sorrows.
But were the Words too feeble to reach the Mountain?
The mountain blamed the cloud for drifting apart,
But you never did ask… replied the cloud
How could I have stopped the wind when silence is all we had between us
I was at a height blinded by view
But you could have risen above your ego to…
Faith is all we had between us, but it were you who suspected me for other mounts.
It was the silence, which separated them,
And it is the silence, which stands between them today.
Music is mute, words are lost…
It is rumored that Google is talking to DTH providers in India to have Youtube on your idot box. This is the story on Economic Times
What puzzles me is that how can Youtube be accessed from TV in the current framework of hardware and remote capability. The existing remotes do not facilitate textual search, nor does the current hardware supports 2-way server client communication as it is only a dumb broadcasting framework,
At best, what YouTube can do is that collate Trending videos of the day and have the users choose them and play. That is not interesting and so un-youtube..
Also, if somehow Youtube is able to crack it technically and evolve the DTH architecture, will the existing content providers ( channels) like Youtube and DTH shaking hands. Afterall, once you have Youtube on your set-top box, all you need is Youtube and no channel subscription because of the crowdsourced ( aka pirated) videos.
IOS is the sexiest mobile operating system on the planet.. Or is it not ??
I have been breaking my head since morning to resolve issues with two of my IOS devices. Have gone through multiple forums, tried all jantar-mantar, but nothing seems to work..
Iphone – Backlight is on continuously. Tried everything but backlight is not off
Ipad – No sound comes whatever I try. But when I put a headphone, the sounds come properly..
Some of the forums mentioned that there is a bug in IOS and they have given a solution to change the settings… but that also did not work… The Ipad sound not coming is a very common issue btw..
Surprised, if it is so, why has Apple not come with any fixes or atleast the bug should have been resolved with IOS7 upgrade…
Save Apple! They are no better than Microsoft.
With reference to my earlier blog mentioning that there is an opportunity for Online FMCG brand, Online Only FMCG Brand, looks like that there are some early stage companies already trying that….
Custom Made Chocolates: Happiness Bars , LovelyChocos
Custom Made Icecreams: HokeyPokey. They are a premium ice-cream shop, now graduating to e-commerce.
Time is not far, when we will have e-commerce portals enabling consumers to…
Make your own soap , Make your own cookie, Make your own Namkeen, Make your own Shampoo, Make your own Jam etc..
Thrillophilia seems to have decent traction as per this report from Techcircle….Thrillophila doing 3 crores of revenue
The site indeed looks very well done and they have fantastic collection of short and long excursions.. But why did then only raise 1.25 crores of funding…. At a revenue of 3 crores, it should be valued at 15-20 crores atleast.. What is the interest of investor in holding less than 10%…??… Or is the valuation very less because bulk of revenues is coming from B2B…??
Limeroad, the Online Social shopping platform has launched a new initiative which enables to earn while promoting the products they like…
Source: LimeRoad allows users to earn
Limeroad enables users to create their scrap book in which they can add the items they like. They can later share the scrap book with their friends on the social network and they get a commission on the sale of items initiated through scrape-book.
A good scrap-booker can earn 10k a month….Here are the details
So it is, Social Referral Marketing, where the company gives incentive to users to market their product to other users…. very much similar to the existing MLM marketing popularized by Amway, but it utilizes the power of social network and also users need not buy items and become a member to start selling/promoting..
Also interesting is that Referral marketing on internet is moving from Site referral to item level referral. How would Limeroad ensure that every user gets the incentive based on his selling effort… eg. he only gets incentive for item A bought by users in his social network… ..
Keys to Imagination....
Empowering Leaders 300 Words at a Time
O'Santorini 